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Saturday, April 26, 2014

Power play priority; No change to Kreider’s status

The Rangers held an optional practice this afternoon at Madison Square Garden in advance of Sunday afternoon’s pivotal Game 5 of their Eastern Conference first round series with the Flyers, which is tied at two games apiece.

But the most important part of the Rangers’ day was their (lengthy) power play meeting before the 16 players who chose to skate went on the ice. Chris Kreider (left hand/out indefinitely) was on the ice being drilled by associate coach Scott Arniel prior to the optional practice but it was a conditioning skate without pucks. The Rangers reported there was no change to Kreider’s status. At Philadelphia on Friday, he still was not shooting with his left hand, instead just swiping some backhands with one hand. And he’s still wearing a brace on his left hand.

The Rangers lost Game 4, 2-1, on Friday night at Philadelphia and their power play was 0 for 4. That included just one shot on a four on three that lasted 1:27 and bridged the second period into the third period. Overall, the Rangers are 3 for 20 with the man advantage in the series, with the three goals coming in the first two games.

“We’ve been meeting about that all morning,” Brad Richards said. “Hopefully we’ll put that on the ice tomorrow and let that speak for itself. But we definitely have to get some different looks. You’ve got to give them credit, they’re a different team on the PK than they were in the first game. They’ve made some adjustments, they’re blocking more shots. The lanes are different. So now it’s our turn to up that and make them adjust again and try and score a goal.”

Added coach Alain Vigneault, “It’s just a matter of execution. Our execution gets better and we’ll get better looks. It’s more about how we’re moving the puck right now than anything else. We had a good meeting on it today and I’m confident the power play will be effective. There wasn’t a lot of difference in the pressure they (the Flyers’ penalty kill) were putting on us. Again teams are very aggressive when they’re killing and it’s a matter of good puck support, good puck movement and when you get an opportunity in the lane to shoot the puck, you’ve got to do it. We just weren’t good enough yesterday.”

The need to get more shots on net on the power play goes hand-in-hand with the Rangers’ need to have more bodies at the crease, be it on the man advantage or at even strength.

“We just need to move the puck faster,” center Derick Brassard said. “I think we need to shoot. And like I said earlier, sometimes when you’re going to shoot, the rebound is going to be there and that’s how we’re going to score goals but obviously it needs to be better.”

But Brassard added that sometimes the Rangers can’t provide the body at the net because they need three men for the cycle.

“I don’t think any game is any different, you want to get on the inside,” Vigneault said. “You want to go to the net. You want to get net pressure. You want to get traffic, especially at this time of the year when goals are hard to come by. We had some good looks yesterday. I liked a lot of things about our game yesterday. We did some real good things with the puck, they didn’t spend a lot of time in our end. We had some good looks, their goaltender (Steve Mason) made some good saves. We need to make it a little more challenging for him and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”
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Posted by Andrew Gross on 04/26 at 07:41 PM

“Vigneault said. “You want to go to the net. You want to get net pressure. You want to get traffic…..”
Why Rangers did not try this in game 4? They have to lost the game to figure this out?
No more big saves from Lunqvist, hi is ok but not spectacular any more, a lot of rebound. First line to many unnecessary passes..

About

ANDREW GROSS covers the New York Rangers for The Record and Herald News, having joined the North Jersey Media Group in November 2007. Gross also covered the Rangers and New York Jets, as well as St. John’s basketball and Army football, for Gannett Newspapers and The Journal News (N.Y.). He graduated from Syracuse University in 1989 with a degree in newspaper journalism.